Produced by David Widger
THE IMPEACHMENT OF THE HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK
By Charies Bradlaugh
Boston: William F. Gill & Company
151 Washington Street.
1875.
PREFACE TO FIFTH AND AMERICAN EDITION.
The kindly reception given to me personally throughout those portions of
the United States it has yet been my good fortune to visit, tempts me
to comply with the request of many friends, that I should issue here an
edition of my impeachment of the reigning family in England. The matter
contained in these pages has been delivered orally throughout Great
Britain, and, with one exception, no Digitized by has been offered to
it. Abuse has been plentiful, and threats of prosecution not infrequent;
but although at least one hundred and fifty thousand persons have
listened to the lectures, and four editions of the pamphlet have been
exhausted in England, only one attempt was made, in the _Gentleman's
Magazine_, to advance any kind of reply. And even in this case, when
a formal written discussion had been commenced, the editor of the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ refused to allow any rejoinder to his second
paper.
It is sometimes alleged against me that the pamphlet is a too personal
criticism; my answer is that in every case the points dealt with have
affected our national honor, or augmented our national taxation.
This pamphlet is not a Republican one; it is only an indictment
alleging the incapacity and viciousness of the House of Brunswick, and
a statement of the legal right of the British people to dethrone the
succession on a vacancy arising.
That I am a Republican is perfectly true; that I believe a Republican
form of government to be possible, by peaceful means in England, is
well-known to those who have heard my lectures; and, in issuing this
essay to American readers, I desire to show that there are no reasons
of personal loyalty, there is no plea of gratitude for personal service,
which ought to be urged on behalf of George I. and his descendants.
English by birth, by hope and in ambition, I seek to win from the
descendants of those who broke loose from the Brunswicks nearly a
century ago, sympathy for those who work with me now to a like end. If
I fail, the fault is in the weakness of my tongue and pen, and not from
any defects in the cause I advocate.
The more than fair hearing given to my voice emboldens me to hope a
patient investigation of the case my pen presents; and should a verdict
be given on this great continent unfavorable to me, I feel confident the
jury of my readers will patiently weigh my statements before delivering
their judgment.
Charles Bradlaugh.
IMPEACHMENT OF THE HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK.
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY
By statutes of the 12 and 13 Will. HE., and 6 Anne c. 11, Article 2, the
British Parliament, limiting the monarchy to members of the Church of
England, excluded the Stuarts, and from and after the death of King
William and the Princess Anne without heirs, contrived that the Crown of
this kingdom should devolve upon the Princess Sophia, Duchess Dowager of
Hanover, and the heirs of her body, being Protestants. Heirs failing to
Anne, although seventeen times pregnant, and Sophia dying about seven
weeks before Anne, her son George succeeded under these Acts as George
I. of England and Scotland.
It is said, and perhaps truly, that the German Protestant Guelph was an
improvement on the Catholic Stuart, and the Whigs take credit for having
effected this change in spite of the Tories. This credit they deserve;
but it must not be forgotten that it was scarce half a century before
that the entire aristocracy, including the patriotic Whigs, coalesced
to restore to the throne the Stuarts, who had been got rid of under
Cromwell. If this very aristocracy, of which the Whigs form part, had
never assisted in calling back the Stuarts in the person of Charles
II., there would have been no need to thank them for again turning that
family out.
The object of the present essay is to submit reasons for the repeal of
the Acts of Settlement and Union, so far as the succession to the throne
is concerned, after the abdication or demise of the present monarch.
It is of course assumed, as a point upon which all supporters of the
present Royal Family will agree, that the right to deal with the throne
is inalienably vested in the English people, to be exercised by them
through their representatives in Parliament. The right of the members
of the House of Bruns wick to succeed to the throne is a right accruing
only from the acts of Settlement and Union, it being clear that, except
from this statute, they have no claim to the throne. It is therefore
submitted, that should Parliament in its wisdom see fit to enact that
after the death or abdication of her present Majesty, the throne shall
no longer be filled by a member of the House of Brunswick, such an
enactment would be perfectly within the competence of Parliament. It
is further submitted that the Parliament has full and uncontrollable
authority to make any enactment, and to repeal any enactment heretofore
made, even if such new statute, or the repeal of any old statute, should
in truth change the constitution of the Empire, or modify the character
and powers of either Parliamentary Chamber. The Parliament of the
English Commonwealth, which met on April 25th, 1660, gave the Crown
to Charles II., and the Parliament of the British Monarchy has the
undoubted right to withhold the Crown from Albert Edward, Prince of
Wales. The Convention which assembled at Westminster on January 22d,
1688, took away the crown from James II., and passed over his son, the
then Prince of Wales, as if he had been non-existent. This Convention
was declared to have all the authority of Parliament--ergo. Parliament
has admittedly the right to deprive a living King of his Crown, and to
treat a Prince of Wales as having no claim to the succession.
In point of fact two of the clauses of the Act of Settlement were
repealed in the reign of Queen Anne, and a third clause was repealed
early in the reign of George I., showing that this particular statute
has never been considered immutable or irrepealable. It is right to add
that the clauses repealed were only of consequence to the nation, and
that their repeal was no injury to the Crown. The unbounded right of
the supreme Legislature to enlarge its own powers was contended for
and admitted in 1716, when the duration of Parliament was extended
four years, a triennial Parliament declaring itself and all future
Parliaments septennial. Furthermore, it has been held to be sedition to
deny the complete authority of the Irish Parliament to put an end to its
own existence.
It has been admitted to be within the jurisdiction of Parliament to give
electoral privileges to citizens theretofore unenfranchised; Parliament
claims the unquestioned right to disfranchise persons, hitherto
electors, for misconduct in the exercise of electoral rights, and in
its pleasure to remove and annul any electoral disability. The right of
Parliament to decrease or increase the number of representatives for
any borough has never been disputed, and its authority to decrease the
number of Peers sitting and voting in the House of Lords was recognized
in passing the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill, by which several
Bishops were summarily ejected from amongst the Peers. It is now
submitted that Parliament possesses no Legislative right but what it
derives from the people, and that the people are under no irrevocable
contract or obligation to continue any member of the House of Brunswick
on the throne. In order to show that this is not a solitary opinion, the
following Parlimentary _dicta_ are given:--
The Honorable Temple Luttrell, in a speech made in the House of Commons,
on the 7th November, 1775, showed "that of thirty-three sovereigns since
William the Conqueror, thirteen only have ascended the throne by divine
hereditary right.... The will of the people, superseding any hereditary
claim to succession, at the commencement of the twelfth century placed
Henry I. on the throne, "and this subject to conditions as to laws to be
made by Henry. King John was compelled solemnly to register an assurance
of the ancient rights of the people in a formal manner;" and this
necessary work was accomplished by the Congress at Runnymede, in the
year 1115. "Sir, in the reign of Henry III. (about the year 1223), the
barons, clergy and freeholders, understanding that the King, as Earl of
Poictou, had landed some of his continental troops in the western ports
of England, with a design to strengthen a most odious and arbitrary set
of ministers, they assembled in a Convention or Congress, from whence
they despatched deputies to King Henry, declaring that if he did not
immediately send back those Poictouvians, and remove from his person and
councils evil advisers, they would place upon the throne a Prince who
should better observe the laws of the land. Sir, the King not only
hearkened to that Congress, but shortly after complied with every
article of their demand, and publicly notified his reformation. Now,
Sir, what are we to call that assembly which dethroned Edward II. when
the Archbishop of Canterbury preached a sermon on this Text, 'The voice
of the people is the voice of God'?" "A Prince of the house of Lancaster
was invited over from banishment, and elected by the people to the
throne" on the fall of Richard II. "I shall next proceed to the general
Convention and Congress, which, in 1461, enthroned the Earl of March
by the name of Edward IV., the Primate of all England collecting the
suffrages of the people." "In 1659, a Convention or Congress restored
legal Monarchy in the person of Charles II."
William Pitt, on the 16th December, 1788, being then Chancellor of the
Exchequer, contended that "the right of providing for the deficiency
of Royal authority rested with the two remaining branches of the
Legislature;" and again, "on the disability of the Sovereign, where was
the right to be found? It was to be found in the voice, in the sense
of the people; with them it rested." On the 22d December, Mr. Pitt said
that Mr. Fox had contended that "the two Houses of Parliament cannot
proceed to legislate without a King." His (Mr. Pitt's) answer was: "The
conduct of the Revolution had contradicted that assertion; they
had acted legislatively, and, no King being present, they must,
consequently, have acted without a King."
Mr. Hardinge, a barrister of great repute, and afterwards
Solicitor-General and Judge, in the same debate, said: "The virtues of
our ancestors and the genius of the Government accurately understood, a
century ago, had prompted the Lords and Commons of the realm to pass a
law without a King; and a law which, as he had always read it, had put
upon living record this principle: 'That whenever the supreme executive
hand shall have lost its power to act, the people of the land, fully and
freely represented, can alone repair the defect.'"
On the 26th December, in the House of Lords, discussing the power to
exclude a sitting Monarch from the throne, the Earl of Abingdon
said: "Will a King exclude himself? No! no! my Lords, that exclusion
appertains to us and to the other House of Parliament exclusively. It
is to us it belongs; it is our duty. It is the business of the Lords
and Commons of Great Britain, and of us alone, as the trustees and
representatives of the nation." And following up this argument, Lord
Abingdon contended that in the contingency he was alluding to, "the
right to new model or alter the succession vests in the Parliament of
England without the King, in the Lords and Commons of Great Britain
solely and exclusively."
Lord Stormont, in the same debate, pointed out that William III.
"possessed no other right to the throne than that which he derived from
the votes of the two Houses."
The Marquis of Lansdowne said: "One of the best constitutional writers
we had was Mr. Justice Foster, who, in his book on the 'Principles of
the Constitution,' denies the right even of hereditary succession, and
says it is no right whatever, but merely a political expedient.... The
Crown, Mr. Justice Foster said, was not merely a descendable property
like a laystall, or a pigstye, but was put in trust for millions, and
for the happiness of ages yet unborn, which Parliament has it always
in its power to mould, to shape, to alter, to fashion, just as it shall
think proper. And in speaking of Parliament," his Lordship said, "Mr.
Justice Foster repeatedly spoke of the two Houses of Parliament only."
My object being to procure the repeal of the only title under which
any member of the House of Brunswick could claim to succeed the present
sovereign on the throne, or else to procure a special enactment which
shall for the future exclude the Brunswicks, as the Stuarts were
excluded in 1688 and 1701, the following grounds are submitted as
justifying and requiring such repeal or new enactment:--
1st. That during the one hundred and fifty-seven years the Brunswick
family have reigned over the British Empire, the policy and conduct
of the majority of the members of that family, and especially of the
various reigning members, always saving and excepting her present
Majesty, have been hostile to the welfare of the mass of the people.
This will be sought to be proved at length by a sketch of the principal
events in the reign of each monarch, from August 1st, 1714, to the
present date.
2d. That during the same period of one hundred and fifty-seven years,
fifteen-sixteenths of the entire National Debt have been created, and
that this debt is in great part the result of wars arising from the
mischievous and pro-Hanoverian policy of the Brunswick family.
3d. That in consequence of the incompetence or want of desire for
governmental duty on the part of the various reigning members of
the House of Brunswick, the governing power of the country has been
practically limited to a few families, who have used government in the
majority of instances as a system of machinery for securing place and
pension for themselves and their associates; while it is submitted that
government should be the best contrivance of national wisdom for the
alleviation of national suffering and promotion of national happiness.
Earl Grey even admits that "Our national annals, since the Revolution of
1688, present a sad picture of the selfishness, baseness and corruption
of the great majority of the actors on the political stage."
4th. That a huge pension list has been created, the recipients of the
largest pensions being in most cases persons who are already members of
wealthy families, and who have done nothing whatever to justify their
being kept in idleness at the national expense, while so many workers
in the agricultural districts are in a state of semi-starvation; so many
toilers in large works in Wales, Scotland, and some parts of England,
are in constant debt and dependence; and while large numbers of the
Irish peasantry--having for many generations been denied life at
home--have until lately been driven to seek those means of existence
across the sea which their own fertile land should have amply provided
for them.
5th. That the monarchs of the Brunswick family have been, except in a
few cases of vicious interference, costly puppets, useful only to the
governing aristocracy as a cloak to shield the real wrong doers from the
just reproaches of the people.
6th. That the Brunswick family have shown themselves utterly incapable
of initiating or encouraging wise legislation. That George I. was
shut out practically from the government by his utter ignorance of the
English language, his want of sympathy with British habits, and his
frequent absences from this country. A volume of history, published
by Messrs. Longmans in 1831, says that "George I. continued a German
princeling on the British throne--surrounded still by his petty
Hanoverian satellites, and so ignorant even of the language of his new
subjects, that his English minister, who understood neither French
nor German, could communicate with him only by an imperfect jargon
of barbarous Latin." He "discarded his wife, and had two mistresses
publicly installed in their Court rights and privileges." Earl Grey
declares that "the highly beneficial practice of holding Cabinet
Councils without the presence of the sovereign arose from George the
First's not knowing English." Leslie describes George I. as altogether
ignorant of our language, laws, customs and constitution. Madame de
Maintenon writes of him as disgusted with his subjects. That George II.
was utterly indifferent to English improvement, and was mostly away in
Hanover. Lord Hervey's "Memoirs" portray him as caring for nothing but
soldiers and women, and declare that his highest ambition was to combine
the reputation of a great general with that of a successful libertine.
That George III. was repeatedly insane, and that in his officially
lucid moments his sanity was more dangerous to England than his madness.
Buckle says of him that he was "despotic as well as superstitious....
Every liberal sentiment, everything approaching to reform, nay, even the
mere mention of inquiry, was an abomination in the eyes of that narrow
and ignorant prince." Lord Grenville, his Prime Minister, said of him:
"He had perhaps the narrowest mind of any man I ever knew." That George
IV. was a dissipated, drunken debauchee, bad husband, unfaithful lover,
untrustworthy friend, unnatural father, corrupt regent, and worse king.
Buckle speaks of "the incredible baseness of that ignoble voluptuary."
That William IV. was obstinate, but fortunately fearful of losing his
crown, gave way to progress with a bad grace when chicanery was no
longer possible, and continued resistance became dangerous.
7th. That under the Brunswick family, the national expenditure has
increased to a frightful extent, while our best possessions in America
have been lost, and our home possession, Ireland, rendered chronic in
its discontent by the terrible misgovernment under the four Georges.
And 8th. That the ever increasing burden of the national taxation has
been shifted from the land on to the shoulders of the middle and lower
classes, the landed aristocracy having, until very lately, enjoyed the
practical, monopoly of tax-levying power.